Dear friend,
Welcome! Here’s who I am: I have lived in seven cities across five states in the last decade. Two of those moves were for career promotions, two of those moves were marriage-related. All of those moves required me to meet new people. Make new friends. And y’all – I LOVE humans. I love people. I am an extreme extrovert. And even I, as a people-loving, extremely extroverted, talkative millennial, have struggled to connect at times.
Enter this blog: all about how to make, keep, and enrich life-giving friendships that make your life more colorful, bright, and fulfilled.
I am an educator at heart – I spent 5 years as an elementary school principal. I worked in the nonprofit space as a director, and now I am an educational consultant, trainer, and keynote speaker. I also deeply enjoy hosting events and gathering people.
Think of me as your friend in the city. Your sis, encouraging you to make new connections.
Tik Tok is not dead
This weekend has been a wild adventure. I live in DC, I am a Navy spouse, and so it is quite impossible to stay away from history being made all around me.
And what a TIME to be alive!
For full disclosure, I cannot remember the last time I had TikTok on my phone. But even I cannot deny the impact it has had on society. I recently was helping create centerpieces for a holiday dinner and my friend pulled up a TikTok video showing how to assemble our decorations.
So here's the thing...
There is so much we can learn from this TikTok ban, and I’m just starting to unravel what it actually means to all of us. It’s the educator in me that is constantly trying to find meaning out of things, so bear with me as I untangle my thoughts!
Here is what I believe the TikTok ban (last night) and then un-ban (today) have taught us…so far…
1. Multiple things can be true at the same time.
TikTok is spyware. Also, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and your web browser are all also spying on you. There is a larger conversation about personal privacy and security that we are NOT having.
As a millennial, I’m old enough to remember when the Patriot Act was passed after 9/11 to “fight the war on terror”. And my generation and our parents were all appalled as in the years that followed, public scandal after public scandal showed us that privacy was fading.
Yet, this weekend, I had a conversation with a woman who is a school administrator at a local private school, and she said that this generation pretty much assumes that the government and everyone else has access to all of their information. Now, whether or not that is true across the board, I do know that it’s troubling that we think that is ok.
I also find it incredibly fascinating how within one generation of technology opinions on that can shift so (seemingly) quickly.
2. You Don’t “Own” Your Followers
Here is where I shamelessly ask you to sign up for my newsletter…no seriously. Click. Join my community 😊
There’s a big open secret among creators, which is that no one “owns” their followers. As in, Instagram, X, YouTube, or yes, TikTok, can shut down any day, for a day, or forever. And if any of them go away, and that is where all of your content and community are, you are toast.
Pretty grim, huh?
The reality is, one of the most beautiful things about social media is that it can be used to actually be social. I went to brunch last weekend with a group of 8 strangers that I met through a women’s walking group I joined on Instagram. And I’m going to brunch again next month with many of these same people.
That being said, let this TikTok one-day disappearance be a cautionary tale – if you are looking to actually use social media to be social, to create a community, or to have a lasting impact, move it off of the platform. Invite people into your “house” – your website, newsletter, e-group – and build connections.
Better yet, meet them – in a safe, public place way – in real life!
Which leads me to my next point which is…
3. Go Touch Grass
My husband David and I don’t have children yet. But perhaps one of my biggest goals pre-parenthood is to get more into a daily habit of breathing fresh air daily.
This may seem simple, but when you work from home, and only have things out of the house every other day, sometimes 2 or 3 days can go by without me leaving my house except to go to the mailbox.
With our almost single digit temperatures predicted for later this week in DC, plus an upcoming snowstorm, this winter is proving that this may be tough.
But guys, so many things can be resolved by getting outside and getting fresh air. Check out what the research says below:
"Researchers from the University of Essex found that spending as little as five minutes doing 'green exercise,' or activity in nature, was enough to boost study participants’ mood and self-esteem. Most striking is that this five minute dose proved to be the most effective; study participants who spent 10-60 minutes, or half of the day outside experienced smaller positive changes in their mood and self-esteem compared to those who only went outside for five minutes. "
In as much as technology has helped make our world a better place through modern medicine, knowledge, and solutions to real problems, it’s also posed some real risks.
We’ve got a whole generation of high-schoolers who 26% of them use AI to write their papers.
We have people yelling at each other online.
Becauce that’s what people do behind a computer or phone screen, they yell. Because not seeing you as a real human but as an @ sometimes makes it easier to dehumanize you and not be nice.
So this isn’t a super fancy way to end this blog, but I’ll say this.
Tomorrow, go outside,
tough grass if you can
– or snow in my case –
talk to a real human,
and connect with someone in your community.
If you can do any of those things, I think you might, just might, be ok.
Your friend in the city,
Vimbo
P.S. ❤️ Subscribe to my Sunshine Emails .😊
